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I am all in favor of “designated disabled parking” spaces ... for those who legitimately need them and deserve them. But I think it is shameful and down-right illegal for persons who do not have a disability to use them. And this is happening all too often.

Jim, a good friend of mine who uses a wheelchair and an accessible van to get around, recently shared with me a couple of his personal experiences that I find deeply distressing.

He recently drove to Chuy's for Mexican food. As he was getting in his wheelchair-accessible van, he noticed a young couple parked in the designated accessible parking space next to his. They were getting into their car. They looked to be in their late teens. Neither exhibited any sign of having a mobility impairment or any other disability, for that matter. There was a DV “Disabled Vet” tag prominently displayed on the vehicle. Obviously the car belonged to someone else in the family, their father perhaps, who was a disabled vet. And, so, there they were, parked in a space reserved for disabled persons because it was convenient and their vehicle had the DV tag. They were illegally taking up a space that someone with a legitimate disability might have sorely needed.

The next day, he had a similar experience at the supermarket near his home. The store has some 25 designated accessible parking spaces. Yet every one of them was taken. He saw no accessible vans parked in any of the designated accessible parking spaces. He had to park in another section of the shopping center, far from the store's entrance. He told me that while he was shopping he saw just one other person in the store in a wheelchair.

So, my question is: Who were those other 24 persons who took up the designated disabled parking spaces? Clearly, we need to get back to the original purpose of accessible parking, an accommodation for people with mobility impairments, which allows them to shop, eat out at a restaurant or tend to other business. Today there are too many people using DV tags and HC placards who have no legal right to be doing so.

Law enforcement is part of the answer, of course. But, more important is the morality of the issue. If you are a non-disabled family member of a disabled veteran or of a person with a handicapped placard, be grateful that you can walk the few extra steps to your car and show consideration and empathy for those who cannot by leaving those designated accessible parking spaces for the folks who really need them.